Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-126101, filed May 10, 2007, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to vehicle rear portion structure that is provided with a rear parcel shelf that divides in a vertical direction a vehicle passenger compartment from a trunk space at the rear of a rear seat.
2. Description of Related Art
In a sedan vehicle that is provided with a trunk space, a rear parcel shelf that divides the passenger compartment from the trunk space is located at the rear of the rear seat. A rear parcel shelf is provided with a parcel frame that extends in the vehicle width direction on a front edge side of the rear parcel shelf, and both end frames of this parcel frame are supported above rear wheel houses on the left and right of the vehicle.
A vehicle rear portion structure for a sedan vehicle of this type has been proposed in which the parcel frame is placed on the front side of an apex portion of the left and right rear wheel houses, and both end portions of the parcel frame are connected to a cross member under the floor via reinforcing components (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2006-168434).
In this vehicle rear portion structure, the parcel frame and cross members together with the reinforcing components constitute a toroidal skeleton frame. Moreover, the parcel frame and the respective rear wheel houses are connected together by means of separate reinforcing components.
However, in this conventional vehicle rear portion structure, the toroidal skeleton frame that is formed with the parcel frame, the cross members, and the reinforcing components are located on the front side of the apex portion of the rear wheel houses. Because of this, it is impossible to directly support the load input from the rear suspension by means of the toroidal skeleton frame. In order to increase the support rigidity of the rear suspension, it has been necessary to add further reinforcing components.
In view of the above-described circumstances, the present invention has an object of providing a vehicle rear portion structure that achieves both an improvement in body rigidity and a reduction in weight by increasing the support rigidity of a rear suspension without overly increasing the weight thereof.